Jiuchi

Jiuchi (地打ち), commonly referred to as "ji," is the base beat or underlying rhythm in traditional Japanese music. In the folk tradition, it consists of a simple, even rhythm, sung using kuchi shoka as "do ko do ko." This is often called "straight ji" in English to differentiate from other ji patterns. A common variation is to "swing" the ji, called the "dongo" pattern after the kuchi shoka (sung as "don go don go"). When playing dongo, the upbeat (the "go") is not evenly spaced between the downbe...